Debbie Doll | Ringo Starr ✅

27

We went back to Elsie and dad's house that night for the first time since we had been married. Ritchie and I clutched at each other's hands until the very last moment, only letting go when the door handle turned and Elsie opened the door.

She beamed at us, "you're home!" She took Ritchie into her arms, much to his surprise, and then me. "Darling, your dad's been so worried about you!"

I doubted that, but I bit my tongue as she led us inside and told us to go and get changed into some clean clothes for dinner. Ritchie and I had had to buy our outfits for the last seven days, so we had had clean clothes, but there was nothing quite like your own, was there?

We went upstairs to the room that we had always shared, but somehow it felt different.

Like it wasn't ours anymore.

"When are we moving to London?" I asked him quietly, looking at the single bed.

"A few days."

My eyes widened. I hadn't expected that answer.

"What?" I asked in disbelief.

Ritch shrugged as he unbuttoned his shirt, "Brian's found us a little flat - Montagu Square, I think he said - it's got a spare bedroom so he's asked if we'd let one of the lads stay there for a bit until he finds them all a place, but he said we'd have it to ourselves for a week or so."

I threw my arms around his body and he caught me with a chuckle, his hands going to my arse and filling themselves with my cheeks. He picked me up and I wrapped my legs around his middle, my core burning for him.

"Not now, doll," he kissed my lips harshly, making me want him even more. "There'll be plenty of time for this in our home."

I loved the idea of us having a place of our own.

"Kids! Dinner's ready!" Elsie called up the stairs, making the two of us groan. We weren't kids. We were two married adults shouldn't have been treated like children as we were - Ritchie especially wasn't a child - he was almost twenty-four!

Reluctantly, Ritchie put me down. He watched me undress, which I didn't mind, and then he helped me to do the button up on the back of the clean dress that I had chosen to wear. It was a pale pink, and one of my favourites.

"Do I look okay?" I asked as he changed his shirt. He looked at me and nodded, smiling.

"You look very pretty. Like a doll." I beamed, loving it when he called me a doll or his doll. It was a possessive thing that he did, and it sent thrills through my bones. "Come on," he walked past me, "let's go before they get suspicious." I followed him down the stairs, wishing that we could have held hands or been a real couple when were at home with our parents.

Dad was sat the table, and he was reading the day's newspaper. He looked up when we came into the room, "decided to come home, then?"

Ritchie sat in the seat across from dad, leaving me to sit beside him. I didn't mind because I was sure that dad would never lay an actual hand on me - I was actually more worried for Ritchie's safety; his bruises and scratches from the last time he had seen my father had barely faded despite the almost-two weeks separation that they had had.

A lot had changed in those two weeks.

"We'll be gone again, soon." Ritchie paused. "We're moving."

"Moving?" Elsie echoed, "is that to London? You mentioned it a few weeks ago, Ritchie, but I didn't know that it would be coming so soon -"

"To London?" Dad echoed, glaring at me. "You're moving to London?"

I bit my lip and hesitated for several seconds before I nodded. "Yes. I'm going with Ritchie and his band - and John's wife, Cynthia."

"John got married?" Elsie smiled as she put a plate of food in front of her son, "that's nice for him. He needed somebody to settle him down."

John's not the only one who got married quickly, I wanted to add, but I bit my tongue again. I hated that we couldn't be ourselves at home - we had to be step siblings, not the two people who were in love.

"You could do with somebody to settle you down, too, Richard." Dad frowned at my husband, "all this flitting about, playing in pubs and clubs and then stealing my daughter away for -"

"I didn't steal her, Harry." Ritchie put his fork down and looked at me. I widened my eyes, pleading with him to just stay quiet for this meal. Couldn't we have one nice dinner together? "You abused her, so she didn't want to be around you anymore -"

"Abused?" Dad echoed, laughing, "you wouldn't even know the meaning of the word. You're a boy! You haven't seen abuse, yet, but I'll -"

"Dad!" I snapped, throwing my cutlery across the table. The four of us watched it clatter across the surface and then fall onto the floor. Ritchie's hand crept to my inner thigh, trying to calm me as best he could without saying anything and alerting our parents to our relationship and its new status. "If you ever lay so much as a finger on him again, then I will be the one hurting you." I stood up and turned to Ritchie, "we're leaving. Now."

He nodded and stood up. He turned to his mother, "dinner was lovely - or it would have been if there wasn't some brute threatening to thump me." With our heads held high, we left the kitchen and went upstairs to pack the rest of our things up.

We packed as much as we could into the suitcases that we had between us, and then we left the house forever... hopefully.